Wednesday, October 30, 2013

United we stand?

A few weekends
ago, at the Museum of
the City of New York, we watched an interesting video about the
history of New York City. It ended with 9/11 and a rousing
affirmation of our national unity. At the same time the far right
wing of the Republican Party had shut down the US government and was
threatening to make our government unable to pay its bills. Some
unity.

The whole episode makes very
clear that our political system is based on conflict, on overpowering
one's opponents. Politics, in our democracy, has something in common
with games and a lot in common with warfare.

Games have rules. These rules
determine what are legitimate moves in the game and what sorts of
actions are banned. Most sports allow a considerable amount of
violence but there are definite limits to it, set by the rules of the
game, and the rules are enforced by the umpires.

The same is true of war but
here there are no umpires. Enforcing the rules, especially
eliminating the use of certain kinds of weapons is therefore a much
more complex undertaking. The many years of diplomatic and political
pressures on Iran serve the purpose of limiting the number of
countries possessing atomic weapons, in the hope of banning future
uses of them. The imminent threat of bombing Syria similarly had to
do with the desire to eliminate the use of chemical weapons from
warfare. Syrian transgression of that rule needed to be punished in
order to keep the rules in force.

Politics is like warfare except
that bodily violence is banned. Not everyone observes that rule –
several doctors performing abortions have been murdered in acts of
political violence, so have several presidents, and leaders like
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. There is a great deal more
political violence in dictatorships and in times of revolutionary
conflict. But everyone, I think, agrees in principle that physical
violence does not have a
place in politics.

Politics therefore has its own
methods for resolving conflicts. By and large the political process
consists of enforcing compromises on those members of the society
less powerful than one's own group, as well as accepting compromises
enforced on us by those more powerful. If the search and pressure for
compromise fails, we are accustomed to take a vote and the majority
wins. Instead of hauling out our six shooters, or today more probably
our machine guns, we take a vote and settle the conflict in that way.
The rules of our political system say that once a law as been voted
in, and once it has passed muster of the Supreme Court, the law
stands and the discussion has come to an end. It can of course be
reopened at a later date and then we go through the whole process
again.

The recent
government shut-down and a possible repeat early next year arose
because the far right is violating the rules by trying to enforce a
compromise after the vote has been taken and the court has
spoken. That is clearly improper behavior but it is not that
uncommon.

This is very familiar and would
not need repeating, were it not for the other story we tell ourselves
about how we stand united, are "one nation indivisible."
We all pledge allegiance to the same flag; we sing the same national
anthem, possibly with tears in our eyes, and a hand on our heart.
But that, the current impasse shows, is pure pretense. We are
anything but united. Our country consists of different teams whose
conflicts are as bitter as can be, often on the edge of violence,
barely controlled by rules that are violated again and again.

What unites us, if anything, is
hatred and distrust for other groups. Most Americans have their
favored groups of fellow citizens whom they would like to exile to a
different country or at least deprive of citizenship rights. As the
condition of the country worsens, so does the level of animosity
between groups.